Gifts of Heaven · Volume 1 · Chapter 160

From the only true "patron saint"

26th June 1841, continued until 3/4 8 pm in the evening

[1] If one believes in the help and guidance of certain guardian spirits and angels, he is like him who knows the monarch well, that he is exceedingly good, but for fear that the monarch might not be pleased that he himself would molest him with his supposed clumsiness, he wraps his band around other protection and auxiliary means, and in the end believes that these alone have helped him in all seriousness or protected him from danger, while yet only the monarch as the chief builder has given the weak believer his help and protection through those to whom the weak believer has appealed.

[2] Think this in yourselves. You know that all humans and all spirits and angels are nothing but thoughts freely carried by Me, which always have their life and all of them out of Me, each one so much as it is just most expedient for him according to My eternal order.

[3] But if one comes to another and says to him "Help me in this and that! – and when then the other one wants to help the one who is calling as if from himself, is it not just like when a blind man leads the other and a dead man breathes life into the other, or a sad man wants to comfort the other sad man?

[4] I say to you, every human, spirit, and angel, has enough to stand for himself, and has not one atom more to stand for another by himself.

[5] But whoever comes to Me with whatever needs and wraps the living bond of faith around Me, the only living One, how shall he not receive, because he united himself with Me through living faith?

[6] There is therefore only one true guardian spirit on the path of pure truth – and this is I Myself!

[7] All other "guardian spirits" stem from a weak faith evoked by the profit-seeking institution of the external church.

[8] But since humans have invoked it, are still invoking it now and will be invoking it in the future, there is nothing else left to do for now, in order to leave people’s freedom unharmed, but to give the weak believers a chance to get in touch with it by means of the supposed intermediary, to have My help and providence.

[9] On the other hand, you do not need to think that this will cease the loving activity of the blessed. It is just not made as weak beliefs teach us. But because all the blessed are in Me as I in them, they are also blessed by one and the same love of their holy Father and animated for all eternal times.

[10] There is not a person on this earth who has not been given spirits from a better world. And these spirits are also constantly striving to lead the person to whom they are destined, to the light and the Life of all life.

[11] But where does this very loving striving of such spirits come from and what is it? Isn't it I who do all this in you?

[12] How unjust afterwards, when a person bypasses Me and seeks help from those who have nothing from themselves, but everything only from Me!

[13] But what does man want to seek elsewhere when he knows that I, as the Most High, would like to become with him a man, even a brother, so that he should see from this that I, more than any man, am humble and meek and exceedingly condescending with all My heart, and am not a distant God, but a Father and Brother to you first of all – so that your own life is further from you than I Myself.

[14] Unless a person has seriously become afraid of life and has become friends with death, so that he then does not want to embrace true life and reaches into the distance and by long detours to what is closest to him and what is constantly so to say at hand for him. Because the highest wisdom can find no other possible way where a person who loves life, can not but fully understand everything in it's root.

[15] But go back and consult every gospel, ask all the apostles and other spreaders of My word and show Me some passage in which it was taught to also adhere to certain "guardian spirits" besides Me : "All of you come to Me who are troublesome and burdened, because I want to refresh you all!"

[16] In this invitation, is there anyone who is exempt, or someone who is ordered to be protected by the angels? Certainly not! What is said is said for all infinity and for all eternity!

[17] But who then still wants to assert among you that this My word is not perfect, or that I did not give due consideration to everything at that time and only in later times considered a better one? Such a presumption would even make every worldly ruler angry, who after all, is imperfect in every word out of himself. How then, applied to Me, would it like to make an exception of itself!

[18] See, therefore, such faith is like a parasite on the tree of life. But who would claim that the parasite sucks it’s life from somewhere else than from the tree on which it sits?

[19] But what is the fruit of the tree, and what is the fruit of the parasitic plant? Only on the tree does the true fruit grow. To him who eats it, it gives life. But as for the fruit of the parasitic plant, it’s sap can at most serve to catch, if it were possible, even the birds of heaven for death.

[20] See, so it goes with everything that does not connect with Me, i.e. that is not built up with Me from the ground up! One of them is either a whitewashed house or it is a parasite on the tree of life, the one is as useful as the other.

[21] I alone am the Way, the Truth and the Life! He who does not gather with Me, scatters!

[22] A branch that is separated from the vine, will it not wither immediately and never bear fruit? Who therefore needs something, come to Me and believe, so he will receive it!

[23] Whoever is oppressed by any doubt, think that the doubt is only a result of someone not walking with Me and not allowing himself to be drawn away from Me. But who has a doubt, come to Me and believe, then light will become light for him in what he doubted.

[24] Whoever is blind and deaf and lame and feeble-minded and dumb and possessed, come to Me and have faith, and he will certainly find the most certain help.

[25] But mind you, I am not a small, but an over-great God. Therefore, whoever wants to understand Me, should spread his arms wide – i.e. he must completely embrace Me and not just think that I could help if I wanted to. But he must think that I also want to help most of all at all times. If he will unite such things in himself, his faith will really come alive.

[26] But it does – i.e. Spoken according to your standard – now and then occurs to many that he relates his belief to so many protective spirit appearances, especially to those occurring in the realm of so- called somnambulism.

[27] Then I say: These protective-spiritual phenomena occurring on such occasions are nothing else but creations of one's own faith and have great similarity with those dreams in which, under all kinds of circumstances, that comes to man's mind figuratively and vividly, which he has thought about extremely vividly in his waking state, not in his mind, but in his soul.

[28] But just as on the one hand these dream-images are something, so is the aforementioned appearance of the somnambulists not merely an empty appearance, but also something real. But what is this real thing? This real thing is nothing but a creation of one's own faith in connection with the love that realizes everything.

[29] For no man can seek help with anything, unless he first believed, and then lovingly and trustingly embraced it with his mind. And even a material artist cannot bring about a figure which he has not previously created in himself, so to speak.

[30] But how did he make it? At first he thought of some object. This object pleased him. But since he liked it, he embraced it in his mind and was in a certain way in love with his idea. But as he has embraced his idea with love, so he will infallibly put it into work, if he possesses the capacity for it.

[31] Now see, so it goes with all phenomena, especially in the so-called somnambulistic state, in which the illusions of the sight cease and the self-creations vanish like fog when not only the soul but the living spirit of the somnambulist awakens (*1) In which state (which of course occurs somewhat rarely) the somnambulists will then make very little mention of all the "guardian spirits" etc. observed earlier, since the mind only sees and hears the one and only great guardian Spirit of all guardian spirits in clear vision and acknowledges Him.

[32] But as far as the somnambulistic appearances also concern those who are fanatical about monks, you will have so much wisdom yourself and not, like the heathen, be of the foolish belief, all these enthusiasm on the most luminous side to accept My word at face value and, in the end, be of a quarter faith, as if even wooden, stone and painted pictures of certain "patron saints" could help you.

[33] I say to you, this kind of faith is not a hair better than that of the Baal servants! If the living person cannot help his brother, and it says in the Scriptures that all human help is of no use – what should a carved wood or some other kind of dead matter achieve?

[34] Or would you even like to be of the opinion that on such helpful occasions the "protective spirits" themselves are stuck in their material images? This few may convince you of that in the negative.

[35] Take, e.g., the best picture of Myself hanging on the cross, count all the crucifixes in the Catholic and also in other Christian worlds, of which there are sometimes in a single house several dozens of different sizes – should all these pictures together help more than one can, or should the larger ones have more power than the smaller ones?

[36] Or should perhaps the consecrated Christs be stronger than the unconsecrated ones – and the consecrated image in a high altar even more powerful than another in a side chapel? Do you not see the silliness at first sight?

[37] But if I, as the living helper Myself, do not need a person, not even an angel and much less a carved picture (because if I help, I help in spirit and in truth, but not in wood, in stone and in the color!) – what then can the images of the "guardian spirits" have for strength and effect, since the "guardian spirits" themselves have absolutely no helping force and effect?

[38] But if we state the case that they have some helping power of their own, according to their weak faith, but at the same time are besought by many hundreds of thousands of people who are kneeling before their images, how would such an indivisible protecting spirit have to flash through all his images, so that they may not be too late with their help!

[39] Or do you think a spirit can be present everywhere at the same time? The eternal Spirit can do such things, since all things are in Him. But a created spirit will never ever be able to do this because, in relation to Me, it is only a finite spirit.

[40] But which person can think a thousand thoughts at once? – But the thinking is only a work of the spirit and a seeing of the soul, which takes in either the thoughts or, better, the spiritual works from the spirit, as outwardly the great thoughts or visible works of the eternal spirit of God. But if the spirit in you can only think one thought about the other simply or one after the other, then it is itself only simple and indivisible and can thereby only gradually see and will not be able to cope with this vision in all eternity. – How would he like to be present as some "patron saint" in all the portraits, equally helping and at the same time?

[41] But the spirits who have reached the other world are only laboriously cured of this disease of protective spirits. And it happens very often that all the supposed "protective spirits" must be cleared out of their way. For, if such were not to happen, most Roman Catholics would flee Me and turn to their tutelary spirits.

[42] I do not even need to go back far, but right now, as you write this, the poor spirits are running colorfully in confusion, seeking their "patrons" with all zeal. But Me, who visibly comes to meet them like a brother and most loving father and calls out to them that it is I alone whom they have to seek and find, Me they flee in all earnestness, and the braver ones even ask Me to bring them to their guardian spirits.

[43] Behold, if such folly finds itself strong even among the spirits who already dwell on the other side, thus, what proofs against such folly may all the “phenomena" on this material world supply, namely, to him who strives after the spirit of living love and living truth in faith?

[44] Therefore, if your house is damaged or you fear any damage, just turn to Me at all times, I am the most understanding soul-house-builder and the most surely helping guardian Spirit of all guardian spirits – and you can be assured that if I tear down a house, I also do it at the cheapest price and I will certainly be able to rebuild it firmly enough.

[45] And think that a monarch like Myself needs no intermediaries at all, but: I am all in all Myself!

[46] And whoever wants to come to Me, come, and he will meet Me at home at all times, just as if I had nothing to do but serve only those who seek Me.

[47] So put your trust and put your confidence in Me. For I am a firm foundation!

[48] Whoever builds on this ground, his house will never leak. For whoever takes the material out of Me, has it alive – as I Myself am the only living One and give life to everyone who seeks it with Me.

[49] If you also seek it with Me, you shall have eternal life. Amen. – This says He who alone has and gives life. Amen.

Footnotes (*1) More about this topic in: The Great Gospel of John" (GEJ.04 042,01 ff.) (ed.)